# Glassdoor Company Reviews Scraper (`du7chmaniac/glassdoor-reviews-scraper`) Actor

Scrape employee reviews from Glassdoor company pages. Extracts ratings, pros, cons, advice to management, job titles, dates, locations, and helpful counts.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/du7chmaniac/glassdoor-reviews-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Joren Maurissen](https://apify.com/du7chmaniac) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation, Developer tools, Jobs
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.50 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md):

```bash
npm install apify-client
```

In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md):

```bash
pip install apify-client
```

In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md):

````bash
# MacOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash
# Windows
irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex
```bash

In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md).

If your project is in a different language, use the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).


# README

## Glassdoor Company Reviews Scraper

> Scrape employee reviews from Glassdoor — ratings, pros, cons, advice to management, job titles, locations, dates, and helpful counts.

### Overview

This Apify Actor scrapes publicly visible company reviews from [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.com). Given a Glassdoor company reviews URL, it paginates through review pages and extracts structured data for each review, including:

- ⭐ **Overall rating** (1–5 scale)
- 📝 **Review title**
- 👍 **Pros**
- 👎 **Cons**
- 💬 **Advice to Management**
- 👤 **Employee status** (Current / Former Employee)
- 💼 **Job title**
- 📅 **Date**
- 📍 **Location**
- 🔢 **Helpful count** (number of upvotes)

### Features

- **Multi-strategy parsing** — uses `data-test` attributes first, then falls back to legacy CSS class names, so the scraper keeps working even when Glassdoor changes its obfuscated class names
- **Pagination support** — automatically navigates through review pages (`?p=2`, `?p=3`, …)
- **Rate-limit friendly** — configurable random delays between page requests
- **Graceful blocking handling** — detects Cloudflare bot protection and logs a clear warning instead of crashing, preserving any reviews already collected
- **Apify residential proxy ready** — designed to work with Apify's residential proxy pool for reliable access on the platform

### Use Cases

- **Employer brand monitoring** — track sentiment trends for your company over time
- **Competitive intelligence** — compare review ratings and themes across competitors
- **HR analytics** — aggregate pros/cons text for qualitative analysis of workplace culture
- **Job search research** — collect reviews for companies you're considering
- **Market research** — analyze industry-wide employee satisfaction trends
- **NLP / sentiment analysis** — build datasets of employee review text for ML models

### Input

The actor accepts the following input fields:

| Field | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|-------|------|----------|---------|-------------|
| `companyUrl` | string | ✅ | — | Full Glassdoor reviews URL, e.g. `https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9049.htm` |
| `maxReviews` | integer | ❌ | `100` | Maximum number of reviews to collect |
| `maxPages` | integer | ❌ | `10` | Maximum pages to paginate through (≈10 reviews per page) |
| `minDelay` | number | ❌ | `2.0` | Minimum random delay (seconds) between page requests |
| `maxDelay` | number | ❌ | `5.0` | Maximum random delay (seconds) between page requests |

#### Input Example

```json
{
    "companyUrl": "https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9049.htm",
    "maxReviews": 50,
    "maxPages": 5
}
````

### Output

Each review is pushed as a dataset item with the following structure:

```json
{
    "companyName": "Google",
    "rating": 4.0,
    "title": "Great place to work with smart people",
    "pros": "Excellent benefits, free food, smart colleagues, great compensation...",
    "cons": "Can be competitive, long hours during crunch periods...",
    "adviceToManagement": "Continue to invest in employee growth and work-life balance.",
    "employeeStatus": "Current Employee",
    "jobTitle": "Software Engineer",
    "date": "2024-06-15",
    "location": "Mountain View, CA",
    "helpfulCount": 12,
    "reviewPage": 1
}
```

A summary is also saved to the `OUTPUT` key-value store:

```json
{
    "companyName": "Google",
    "overallRating": 4.3,
    "totalReviewsAvailable": 5000,
    "reviewsCollected": 50,
    "pagesScraped": 5,
    "wasBlocked": false,
    "reviews": [...]
}
```

### How to Use

#### On the Apify Platform

1. Go to the actor page on [Apify Store](https://apify.com/store)
2. Click **Try for free** or **Start with Apify**
3. Enter the company reviews URL and adjust limits
4. **Important:** Enable residential proxies in the run settings:
   - Proxy type: **Apify Proxy**
   - Proxy group: **RESIDENTIAL**
   - Country: **US** (recommended for Glassdoor)
5. Click **Start** and wait for results
6. Download data from the **Dataset** tab (JSON, CSV, Excel, etc.)

#### Locally

```bash
## Install the Apify CLI
npm install -g apify

## Run the actor
apify run -i '{"companyUrl": "https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9049.htm", "maxReviews": 5, "maxPages": 1}'
```

> ⚠️ **Local runs will likely be blocked by Cloudflare.** Glassdoor's bot protection blocks non-browser HTTP clients without residential proxies. For reliable results, run on the Apify platform with residential proxies.

#### Via API (Python)

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

run = client.actor("glassdoor-reviews-scraper").call(run_input={
    "companyUrl": "https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9049.htm",
    "maxReviews": 50,
    "maxPages": 5,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)
```

### Pricing

This actor uses **Pay Per Result** pricing on the Apify platform.

| Resource | Cost |
|----------|------|
| Per review scraped | $0.005 |
| Minimum run cost | $0.05 |

**Example costs:**

- 50 reviews → $0.25
- 100 reviews → $0.50
- 500 reviews → $2.50
- 1,000 reviews → $5.00

> Proxy costs (residential proxies) are included in the per-result price.

### Limitations & Important Notes

#### Bot Protection

Glassdoor uses **Cloudflare bot detection** with IP reputation scoring and rate limiting. This means:

- **Local runs will likely get 403 blocked** — this is expected behavior
- **Apify platform runs with residential proxies** are required for reliable access
- The actor detects blocking and exits gracefully, preserving any data collected before the block

#### Review Cap

Glassdoor typically shows a maximum of ~2,000 reviews per company in pagination. The `maxReviews` parameter caps at 5,000 but actual results may be lower depending on the company.

#### Selectors May Change

Glassdoor periodically changes its HTML class names (obfuscated CSS). This actor uses multiple fallback selector strategies, but if all fail, the parser may need updating. The `data-test` attribute approach is the most stable.

#### Legal & Ethical Use

- Only scrape **publicly visible** review data — do not bypass Glassdoor's login wall
- Respect Glassdoor's Terms of Service and `robots.txt`
- Do not store or republish reviewer personal data
- Use the data for legitimate research and analysis purposes
- Consider using [Glassdoor's official API](https://www.glassdoor.com/developer/index.htm) if available for your use case

### Technical Details

- **Runtime:** Python 3.14 on `apify/actor-python:3.14`
- **HTTP client:** `httpx` with realistic Chrome browser headers
- **HTML parser:** `BeautifulSoup` with `lxml`
- **Pagination:** URL-based (`?p={page}`)
- **Rate limiting:** Configurable random delays between requests

### Support

If you encounter issues:

1. Check that your URL is a valid Glassdoor reviews page (must contain `/Reviews/` and `E{companyId}.htm`)
2. Ensure you're using residential proxies on the Apify platform
3. If no reviews are found, the page structure may have changed — check logs for selector warnings

# Actor input Schema

## `companyUrl` (type: `string`):

The full URL of the company's reviews page on Glassdoor. Example: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9049.htm

## `maxReviews` (type: `integer`):

The maximum number of reviews to collect. The actor will stop once this limit is reached.

## `maxPages` (type: `integer`):

The maximum number of review pages to paginate through. Each page typically contains 10 reviews.

## `minDelay` (type: `number`):

Minimum random delay between page requests to avoid rate limiting.

## `maxDelay` (type: `number`):

Maximum random delay between page requests to avoid rate limiting.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Select RESIDENTIAL proxy for Glassdoor — datacenter IPs will be blocked by Cloudflare.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "companyUrl": "https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9049.htm",
  "maxReviews": 100,
  "maxPages": 10,
  "minDelay": 2,
  "maxDelay": 5,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "companyUrl": "https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9049.htm"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("du7chmaniac/glassdoor-reviews-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "companyUrl": "https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9049.htm" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("du7chmaniac/glassdoor-reviews-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "companyUrl": "https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9049.htm"
}' |
apify call du7chmaniac/glassdoor-reviews-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=du7chmaniac/glassdoor-reviews-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

```json
{
    "openapi": "3.0.1",
    "info": {
        "title": "Glassdoor Company Reviews Scraper",
        "description": "Scrape employee reviews from Glassdoor company pages. Extracts ratings, pros, cons, advice to management, job titles, dates, locations, and helpful counts.",
        "version": "0.0",
        "x-build-id": "Qb7Hm5fTaIeiVbyKi"
    },
    "servers": [
        {
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2"
        }
    ],
    "paths": {
        "/acts/du7chmaniac~glassdoor-reviews-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-du7chmaniac-glassdoor-reviews-scraper",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/du7chmaniac~glassdoor-reviews-scraper/runs": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "runs-sync-du7chmaniac-glassdoor-reviews-scraper",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK",
                        "content": {
                            "application/json": {
                                "schema": {
                                    "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/du7chmaniac~glassdoor-reviews-scraper/run-sync": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-du7chmaniac-glassdoor-reviews-scraper",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "components": {
        "schemas": {
            "inputSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "required": [
                    "companyUrl"
                ],
                "properties": {
                    "companyUrl": {
                        "title": "Glassdoor company reviews URL",
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "The full URL of the company's reviews page on Glassdoor. Example: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9049.htm"
                    },
                    "maxReviews": {
                        "title": "Maximum reviews to scrape",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 5000,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "The maximum number of reviews to collect. The actor will stop once this limit is reached.",
                        "default": 100
                    },
                    "maxPages": {
                        "title": "Maximum pages to scrape",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 500,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "The maximum number of review pages to paginate through. Each page typically contains 10 reviews.",
                        "default": 10
                    },
                    "minDelay": {
                        "title": "Minimum delay between pages (seconds)",
                        "minimum": 0,
                        "maximum": 30,
                        "type": "number",
                        "description": "Minimum random delay between page requests to avoid rate limiting.",
                        "default": 2
                    },
                    "maxDelay": {
                        "title": "Maximum delay between pages (seconds)",
                        "minimum": 0,
                        "maximum": 60,
                        "type": "number",
                        "description": "Maximum random delay between page requests to avoid rate limiting.",
                        "default": 5
                    },
                    "proxyConfiguration": {
                        "title": "Proxy configuration",
                        "type": "object",
                        "description": "Select RESIDENTIAL proxy for Glassdoor — datacenter IPs will be blocked by Cloudflare.",
                        "default": {
                            "useApifyProxy": true,
                            "apifyProxyGroups": [
                                "RESIDENTIAL"
                            ]
                        }
                    }
                }
            },
            "runsResponseSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "properties": {
                    "data": {
                        "type": "object",
                        "properties": {
                            "id": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "actId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "userId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "startedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "finishedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "status": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "READY"
                            },
                            "meta": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "origin": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "API"
                                    },
                                    "userAgent": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "stats": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "inputBodyLen": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2000
                                    },
                                    "rebootCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "restartCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "resurrectCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "computeUnits": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "options": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "build": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "latest"
                                    },
                                    "timeoutSecs": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 300
                                    },
                                    "memoryMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1024
                                    },
                                    "diskMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2048
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "buildId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultKeyValueStoreId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultDatasetId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultRequestQueueId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "buildNumber": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "1.0.0"
                            },
                            "containerUrl": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "usage": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "usageTotalUsd": {
                                "type": "number",
                                "example": 0.00005
                            },
                            "usageUsd": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "number",
                                        "example": 0.00005
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
```